Member-only story
Family Dinners Suck
So why do I keep insisting on them?
When I was a kid, my family ate meals together at the table, right up until my parents got the big D. I hated it. I was a very picky eater and didn’t trust that anything my mother served was edible, let alone tasty, and the table was often the combustion site of our many family tensions. My parents were stressed and no longer in love; we kids were antsy to get away and go back to our actual lives. The dinner table was a slog we all forced ourselves to endure in the name of Quality Time.
I am a bit more lax when it comes to eating all together at the table for every meal, but I do demand it for most dinners. I let my kids eat in front of the TV for breakfast so I can rush around the kitchen, feeding the dogs and making school lunches and coffee and doing last night’s dishes because I was too tired to do anything but collapse onto the couch and watch Riverdale. At lunch, I plant my youngest in his high chair in front of the TV so I can prepare the meal without worrying he’s hanging from the rafters. But at dinnertime, I ask for the TV to be off and for all of us to sit together as a family. It feels important for a variety of reasons: I want my kids to get comfortable conversing with adults, I feel less guilty if one out of three meals is at a table, and I want to check in as a family with all of us in one place.
